Nicaragua: Crackdown

After the Sandinista regime took power in Nicaragua 27 months ago, two
symbols showed that pluralism and democracy could somehow coexist with
a leftist revolution. One was the fiercely independent newspaper La
Prensa, which has become an increasingly vocal critic of the nine-man
Sandinista directorate. The other was the Superior Council of Private
Enterprise, known by its Spanish acronym COSEP, a politically powerful
association representing the country's embattled private business
sector. Earlier this month the Sandinista government threatened to
close down La Prensa. Last week the Sandinistas moved against...